SPOILER ALERT!
The witches are back! But there’s a whole episode to discuss before I can get to that.
The witches return in “American Horror Story: Apocalyopse.” Photo courtesy of Hypable.com
Episode 3 starts with Langdon (Cody Fern) interviewing everyone about coming to the sanctuary. He wraps up most of last week’s cliff-hangers by revealing that Timothy and Emily are okay and Evan Peters is off the hook for Joan Collins’ murder. He also admits he’s not looking to take “good” people with him to rebuild the earth.
Did we just see the Devil in true form? When trying to intimidate Mallory (Billie Lourd), Langdon morphs his face into that of a scarred old man, almost like a nosed Voldemort, but Mallory somehow causes the fireplace to spit flames and telepathically tosses Landgon to the ground. Obviously this means she’s a witch, but we’ll get to that later.
This interaction seems to creep Langdon out, who prays to the Devil in a séance, cutting himself and summoning snakes in a pentagram drawn in blood until his eyes go pitch black, presumably possessed.
Outpost’s resident robot Ms. Mead (Kathy Bates) talks about what she thought were her memories including her first kill, a ridiculously violent domestic fight, with Ms. Venable (Sarah Paulson). Mead suggests they try to find the sanctuary themselves.
We get out first look at the survivors of the nuclear fallout. It’s a grey sandy waterfront wasteland. Brock (Billy Eichner) was somehow able to survive the bombing, and shows up to go all “Mad Max” on some cannibals in his attempt to find Coco. He sees Langdon’s carriage and secretly hitches a ride on it.
Billy Eicher is back after the first episode of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse” now infected with nuclear radiation. Photo courtesy of TVLine.com
The carriage arrives at the Outpost and once Brock sneaks off, it’s empty except for a case of somehow still ripe apples. Mead and Venable find the fruit and devise a plan to inject them with poison and serve them at a Halloween party.
Coco (Leslie Grossman) is as vapid as ever as she gets ready for the masquerade ball with Evan Peters. She taunts Mallory, who tries to talk with them about what happened with Langdon. I thought Coco would regret making fun of Mallory, but she didn’t have the chance to, because in her next scene, she’s offering to toss who she thinks is Langdon’s salad and goes off into a room with him. Much to her surprise it’s Brock, who thanks to a party mask, gets the perfect opportunity to stab Coco in the brain.
After making the party guests bob for apples, Venable and Mead watch over as everyone’s poisoned. The “Snow White” and Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit parallels aren’t exactly subtle in this scene, but it’s insanely menacing and twisted.
When they go to confront Langdon, he’s able to somehow make Mead turn the gun on her friend, shooting Ms. Venable in the throat. When Mead questions why she did that, Langdon explains to her that it’s all been part of his grand plan. He doesn’t like getting his hands dirty and preferred everyone turn on each other. It looks like the Antichrist just got a robotic henchwomen.
Right after Sarah Paulson’s first death of the season, she returns as “Coven” Supreme Witch Cordelia Foxx, alongside the third season’s Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts) and Myrtle Snow (Frances Conroy), also reprising their roles as witches. They strut out of the fog and into Outpost, where they round up the bodies of their fellow witches to bring them back to life.
The witches from the third season of “American Horror Story” return in “Apocalypse.” Photo courtesy of Hypable.com
Much to my surprise, in addition to Mallory, they also bring back Coco and Adina Porter, meaning all three of them have been witches this whole time. This actually clarifies a conversation Adina Porter had with Langdon during her interview, where they said they’d interacted before. She told him that she’s not powerful enough to stop him alone, but now she’s got at least five other witches by her side.
Madison leans over Mallory’s newly resurrected body and says what has become her catchphrase “Surprise bitch. I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me.”
I have mixed feeling about this episode. Obviously the witches’ entrance was amazing, Langdon’s interrogation montage was creepy and Ms. Mead’s backstory was good old fashion “AHS” (even if it seemed inspired by “Westworld”) but excluding those sequences, I wasn’t as in love with this episode as the previous two.
The whole thing felt a little rushed and I can’t buy Billy Eichner as some post-apocalyptic badass. Since Timothy and Emily are dead, why was so much of the first two episodes wasted on their chracters? Thankfully, Ryan Murphy has already confirmed that Tate from “Murder House” is coming back, so we haven’t seen the last of Evan Peters this season.
The preview for next week’s episode promises a focus on the Coven, and judging by Langdon’s shorter hair in the trailer, I’m guessing it’s going to be a flashback to the witches trying to intervene before the apocalypse, possibly with Adina Porter by their side. Thw question I need answered is how Myrtle and Madison, who were burnt at the stake and strangled by the end of “Coven” are back. I’m guessing Cordelia travelled to Hell to bring them back to try to save the world, but we’ll have to wait another week to find out.
Make sure to check back next week for Episode 3’s recap of “American Horror Story: Apocalypse.”
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